F.A.Q. / Mail Author

Any mail sent from this page will directly to the author, and all visitors are welcome to register their opinion be it good, bad or indifferent. Please don't worry about offending or upsetting me - I'm extremely thick skinned so there's no need to worry that criticism will result in flaming or anything.

If you are going to ask me one of the following questions, you might want to save time by clicking on a question and reading the answer below :

Some time ago I began a thread on rec.arts.startrek.tech in which we attempted to rank the various classes of starship against each other. This was intended to come to some sort of consensus on all those arguments about which starships "kick ass", which are "wimpy", how Defiant would fare in battle against one of the Enterprises, and so on. Originally we simply assigned overall strength values to each class, but I have since expanded this to examine ships in each of seven categories. More details can be found on the fleets, Strengths, introduction comments page.

Do you have any information on what the next series/movie will be about?

In a word, no. Many people seem to think that I have some kind of special "insider access" to Trek information - in fact nothing could be further from the truth. I learn about upcoming episodes by reading about them on other peoples web sites, usually after they have aired in the USA. I have absolutely no idea which rumours are true and which are not.

I want to create an LCARS interface for my site, can you help?

The interface for this site has been developed over several years - explaining every facet of it would take a long, long time. Basically we split the page into several frames. The top and bottom menu lists are frames which have a table in them; each cell of the table has a purpose-created graphic in it which is linked to the list related to that topic, with the link targeted to another frame on the left. Each list is another table filled with more graphics, these linked to the individual pages and targeted to the main text area. That's the bare bones of it - if you wish you are welcome to download the pages and examine the HTML to see how the frames set-up works. If you still need more help, then email me and I will try to either answer your questions myself or pass them on to my brother, who is the resident programming expert and knows far more of these things than I do.

Can I link to your site? Will you link to my site?

I don't much like links pages - I find making and maintaining them boring, As a result I have never, ever asked anybody to link to my site. If you do want to do so, then certainly you may. But I virtually never update my links page, so unless you have done some favor for me or something, sorry but it's highly unlikely that you will get a link on my site.

If you do want to link to this site feel free to use one of the following banners:

Part of the site doesn't work!

We take great pains to ensure that this site works on every major browser. However, if your browser is not capable of JavaScript then you will have some difficulty - when you choose a topic you will get a title with a button or buttons next to it, which you then need to click to bring up the text or images. In addition, browsers which are not JavaScript capable will not be able to access the "Size Charts" section at all. There is just nothing we can do about this - I can only suggest you upgrade to a newer browser.

If you do find a problem when using a reasonably up to date browser, please let us know - as far as we are concerned the site is technically perfect right now, so if you find a problem it's one we don't know about and it will never be fixed until you report it!

What's with all the different colours?

There is a colour coding scheme in operation throughout this site - the colour of every piece of text, every menu item and every button tells you something about it. Full details are available in the "Key" section of the site guide, but in brief :

Yellow text is information taken directly from filmed episodes or movies.

Green text is information taken directly from official reference sources such as Tech Manuals, novels, etc.

white text is information invented by me.

Orange buttons lead to pages written from the point of view of the Trek universe. These pages treat the show as if it depicts real people experiencing real events.

Blue buttons lead to pages written from the point of view of the real universe. These pages treat the show as the fictional creation which it is.

As of now, the canon/background/speculation system doesn't apply to the blue sections of the site - those written from the 20th century point of view. Originally this was because little if any of this part of the site had any real canon content in it - it was all opinion, fanfic, site guide and suchlike. As a rule of thumb, you can take the stuff in the Lists section as canon and treat everything else as speculation.

I think you're wrong about...

Many people write offering alternative viewpoints on various aspects of Trek technology. This is all fine, and if you have an example where some part of the site is contradicted by the show itself then I welcome it and will update the site accordingly as time and interest allows.

If you offer alternative viewpoints based on noncanon sources such as the Tech Manuals, I may or may not include it. Noncanon sources are included only as and when I feel like doing so.

If you offer alternative viewpoints based on your own opinions, then I'll usually listen and be happy to discuss it with you. But in cases where it just comes down to a matter of opinion, well, this site is designed to showcase my opinions on Trek, not yours. Remember there's nothing stopping you from making your own website!

Where do you get all your information?

All of the canon information on the site is drawn from filmed episodes or movies. For more detail, see the disclaimers and ethos sections of the guide.

What Font do you use for your titles?

The font is called Compacta Lt BT. I downloaded it from a web site some three years ago, and have no idea which site it was or whether it still exists. This particular font is a difficult one to find, but there are several good TNG monitor fonts out there which can be found via a search of Hotbot or Yahoo.

Compacta is a commercially created font, and as such it is a copyright violation for me to post you a copy. That's a risk I'm reluctant to take, so please don't ask me to do it.

Can I copy your pictures and/or text on...

Yes. All original information on this site is free for anybody to copy so long as you follow some simple rules :

Give proper credit where you use it - a note at the top or bottom of each page where information is reproduced noting the origin of the information. The statement should read something along the lines of "This information is courtesy of the Daystrom Institute Technical Library and copyright Graham Kennedy", or any other reasonable statement.

The information should be used in the form of extracts rather than wholesale reproduction of entire sections. There is no specific limit in terms of the number of words, paragraphs, etc. that you may use - common-sense should apply. Note that I reserve the right to rescind permission to reproduce information should I judge that this limit has been exceeded.

Do not make any charge for access to the information or any profit from it.

Mention if you have altered the material.

All rights reserved.

You've got the Klingon Bird of Prey ships all wrong!

Yes, the ships I have on this site do not match up to the official versions. But there are reasons for this! The various models of Bird of Prey on this site have been very carefully researched and thought out, and there is a very extensive article discussing why I done things the way I have here. Typing a summary of this article for everybody who emails to ask is killing my poor old fingers, so please at least skim it before asking me about it!

Are you going to write any more of your story, "Portal"?

This is one of the most common questions I get regarding the site. First, let me thank everybody for the feedback I get about the story, which is about 95% positive. Unfortunately, the answer is "almost certainly not".

I originally planned to keep extending Portal until it involved every major Star Trek series. However, I didn't want to do a 'Voyager gets home, has an adventure, then ends up back where it was' story - too cliche. So I had to wait to see if and how Voyager returned to the Alpha Quadrant before continuing.

As Voyager's end approached, I worked up a rough plotline. "The Phantom Menace" and its 'midichlorians' had rather conveniently provided a way to explain the force immunity of the folk from our galaxy - no midichlorians, no force. My idea was that Troi and O'Brien would have become infected with midichlorians during their time in the Wars galaxy, and that this infection had been slowly spreading undetected through the Federation since their return. This would threaten catastrophe on two fronts; without guidance, the people who are becoming force sensitive in this galaxy are all turning to the dark side. Troi, being one of the first infected and already having PSI powers, is one of the most powerful of these folk. The spread of midichlorians will also make our people vulnerable to the Empire's own force users. The Empire's next venture through the portal will spell the doom for the Federation...

Along comes Voyager, and the EMH finds a way to use Seven's nanoprobes to wipe out midichlorians. Starfleet has come to believe that this midichlorian 'infection' is responsible for the evilness of the Empire, based on how our own recent converts are behaving. Janeway is ordered to take Voyager - essentially invulnerable now with its future technology - through to spread the nanoprobes in the wars galaxy, wiping out the force on both sides of the Portal once and for all.

Troi, in some sort of confrontation with Picard, manages to overcome the dark side. Picard realises that the force is not inherently evil, and is a normal part of life in the Wars galaxy, but Starfleet will not listen. Against orders he sets out to stop Janeway. She doesn't want to listen either, and there is a three sided battle - Picard trying to stop Janeway, Janeway trying to stop the force, and the Empire trying to stop both of them. This was originally planned to culminate at the battle around Endor in Return of the Jedi. The final defeat of the Empire by the Rebels - and of the Emperor by Luke - would convince Janeway that the force is indeed not evil, and at the end of the story peaceful relations would be established between the new Republic and the Federation. A nice happy ending in the classic "enemies become friends" Trek style.

Unfortunately, while The Phantom Menace did rather nicely provide a possible explanation of the whole force immunity thing which had become such a large part of Portal, I hated the film so much that it put me off the whole Star Wars franchise. And note, I'm using the word "hate" here. I didn't find it "disappointing", I didn't "dislike" it... I HATED this film. It had literally not one really good moment in it. It's almost as bad as "Armageddon"!Anyway, it killed off my interest in the Wars franchise to the extent that I probably won't be seeing the next movie (which looks just as bad, from the trailer), and I'm not really interested in writing anything else that concerns Star Wars. I have considered rewriting what is there to make it some other Big Bad Empire, though, and continuing it on that basis...

What are Stardates and how do they work?

Stardates are discussed in this article.

What does YATI mean?

The word 'YATI' is one of those internet-isms which has become largely lost in the mists of time. Back in the day when this site hadn't been thought of and people were still wondering whether the rumoured "Next Generation" series would be any good, most of the chatter about Star Trek took place on newsgroups. And amongst those of us who liked to nitpick the show, the term 'YATI' stood for 'Yet Another Trek Inconsistency'.

I think we might actually be the only people still using it... but I kinda like that.